So they started by opening the dome to bring the ambient temperature of the observatory down. Then they started chilling the instrumentation with liquid nitrogen. Heat causes vibrations and chilling also allows a deeper well for photons. We all watched as they were moving the telescope into place — it makes all the right SF sounds — and then we got shooed inside because our body heat could warm up the place and cause condensation.
Because I’m sitting here liveblogging with the computer, they asked me to look up the Right Ascension and Declination. Reading off the numbers felt very much like living in an SF story.
We’re taking a picture of the Ring Nebula. So cool! We can see the white dwarf in the middle.
Now we’re heading over to the Veil Nebula but our field of view was too small because we were magnifying too much. Remember how that works from the earlier lesson?
So, now we’re back at the Ring, taking photos with different filters to get a color image. (Blue Visual Infrared) They also take a “dark” image, to see what noise is present in the equipment so they can subtract that from the final image.1
You’ll have to wait to see the photos. Sorry.
And now it’s the Stephen’s Quintet of galaxies.
Oh! And seeing the Milky Way with the naked eye from the mountain. Drool!
Article Series - LaunchPad Astronomy Workshop 08
- Arrival at Launchpad ‘08
- Launchpad Day 1: Before lunch
- Jerry Oltion, Solar System Tour
- Launch Pad Links and photos
- Launchpad Day 2: What do astronomers do on a typical day?
- Launchpad Day 2: The Electromagnetic Spectrum, Light, Astronomical Tools (Mike Brotherton)
- Launch Pad Day 2: Back of the envelope calculations - Jerry Oltion
- Infrared Camera
- Launchpad Day 2: “Down and Dirty with Dust in Space” (Danny Dale)
- Launch Pad Day 2: Spectrometry Lab
- Learn: Identify constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate at night
- Launchpad Day 3: Amateur Astronomy (Jerry Oltion)
- Launchpad: Everything you always wanted to know about stars. (Mike Brotherton)
- Launchpad 08 Day 3: At WIRO
- Launchpad Day 3: More WIRO, now with open dome
- Launchpad 08: Photos from WIRO
- Launchpad Day 4: Binaries, Nova, Supernova and Black Holes (Mike Brotherton)
- Launchpad Day 5: Galaxies (Mike Brotherton)
- Frequently Asked Questions in Cosmology
- Launchpad Day 5: Ring Nebula
- Launchpad Day 5: Cosmology (Mike Brotherton)
- Launchpad Day 5: Writing for SETI (Jeffrey Lockwood)
- Launchpad Day 6: Computing in Astronomy (Ruben Gamboa)
- Launchpad Day 6: The Human Element in Space (Jerry Oltion)
- Launchpad Day 6: Extra-solar planets (Mike Brotherton)
- Launchpad final post: Online Astronomy Resources for Writers
- By the way, the computer program that they are using has a fairly clunky interface in appearance. A lot of specialty programs are like this, not like the fancy Hollywood graphics you often see. [↩]
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Haha, oh yeah, the fancy Hollywood graphics… Every time I see those fancy computers on TV (especially the crime drama), I thought it would be really fun if someone actually made a computer with regular programs (like browsers and such) but you would have green text over black background, constant beeping with every letter, scanning of lines across the screen, and, of course, letters and pictures flying in with 3D effects for no good reason. It would be so fresh and fun in the beginning but after 10 minutes you would be annoyed to death.